


Amid Nature's Beauty

by CeleritasSagittae



Series: Fey Hearts and Faithful Hands [5]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Death, Established Relationship, F/M, and surprisingly fluffy for all that, but only talking about it, vaguely gothic in that sense the origins could sometimes be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-10-25 04:58:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17718494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CeleritasSagittae/pseuds/CeleritasSagittae
Summary: “Here,” Fíriel says as she lies on her back in the middle of the glade, letting the late afternoon sun warm her skin.  In the distance they can hear the chorus of frogs from the stream nearby, and the breeze from the eaves of the forest is heavy with the scent of lilacs and honeysuckle.  It’s a sacred place, full of peace and the quiet strength of ahahren’s years, and even after all the signs she’s been given she still felt nervous coming here again, especially with present company.Alistair is tickling her nose with a blade of grass.





	Amid Nature's Beauty

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for a flower prompt on tumblr: Persimmon - Bury Me Amidst Nature's Beauty.
> 
> Literal promptfill is literal.

“Here,” Fíriel says as she lies on her back in the middle of the glade, letting the late afternoon sun warm her skin.  They weren’t able to find it during their journey to the elven ruins during the Blight, but then again, it probably didn’t _want_ to be found, considering the turmoil the entire Brecilian Forest was in at the time. In the distance they can hear the chorus of frogs from the stream nearby, and the breeze from the eaves of the forest is heavy with the scent of lilacs and honeysuckle.  It’s a sacred place, full of peace and the quiet strength of a _hahren_ ’s years, and even after all the signs she’s been given she still felt nervous coming here again, especially with present company.

Alistair is tickling her nose with a blade of grass.

“Hmm?” he says.

“Here,” she repeats.  “Lay me down here with a staff of oak and a cedar branch, plant a tree over my body, and I’ll go through the Beyond a happy woman.”

He opens his mouth to speak, but before he does he evidently remembers that today, at least, they are pretending to be normal people – that the sylvans do not attack her on sight, that their days aren’t numbered, that the very land itself doesn’t block and twist and trip them, fighting their infection as surely as it fought the darkspawn two years ago.  Instead, he says, “What if the tree just… up and moves?”

She throws her hands up against the grass and shrugs.  “Don’t care,” she says.  “Either it’ll take me with it or it won’t.”

For a few minutes, she lies there, half-drowsing, letting the dream carry her, until the frog song is abruptly cut short by a bark and loud splashing.  Evidently Huan has discovered the stream.

Fíriel stretches before holding an arm out to let Alistair pull her up to sitting.  “What about you?” she says.  “Any grand plans for when you die?”

He laughs.  “Well, being dead, I very much doubt I’ll care one way or the other.  But, since you asked, I guess I’d always thought I’d like a traditional little Chantry service, with a few surviving friends in attendance, assuming I had any. The Revered Mother would act appropriately sad, whatever her private thoughts on the matter were, and give a very nice short speech: ‘Here lies Alistair: boy, he killed a lot of darkspawn, didn’t he?’ And then they’d put a torch to the pyre, and that would be that.”

“And what after?  Is there… I mean, what exactly do they _do_ with the ashes afterwards?”

He frowns.  “You know, I’m not entirely sure.  Hardly anyone ever stays to the very end, after all.   _You_ could have them, if you liked.  Put them in a little pouch next to your heart, and after—well, if the Keeper would let you, they could sit next to the staff and the branch and whatever else you needed.   _If_ you wanted, that is.”

There’s warmth in his eyes, and a sad little smile on his lips, and though his head is tilted in affection, she can tell by the flush on his face that he’s laid a big chunk of his heart in front of her, bare and beating.  It’s all so endearing that for a moment it’s just like after the rose, where she’s convinced that this can’t be happening, that this amazing man can’t be in her life, because life is never that good to people.

She reaches out and squeezes his hand.  “That has got to be by _far_ the most morbidly romantic thing you’ve ever said to me.”

His smile widens.  “The most by _far_?  Apparently I need to step up my game!”

There’s another bark, and Huan comes bounding from the stream, charging right towards her.  She dodges, but as usual, this leads him to decide that they’re playing a game now, and Alistair has a few good laughs at her expense as the hound chases her around the glade.  When, at length, he trees Fíriel, placing his paws against the bole of the hawthorn she’s taken refuge in and giving her an accusatory woof, she points back at Alistair, and tells him to go get the big, scary human.

As the sun dips lower in the sky, though, and they shoulder their packs once more, he speaks again.  “You know, what with you ending the Blight and everything—”

“With _us_ ending the Blight, you mean.”

“Well, it’s _you_ they care about, but either way—there’s a good chance, if you asked nicely, that we could get the Legion of the Dead to retrieve you, after, and give you that burial you want.”

She smirks.  “And let me poison the entire Brecilian Forest?  I’m sure that’ll go over well.”

“Then they’d burn you first, the way we did your friend.  It just—it doesn’t seem right.”

“And could you die in peace if you knew there was a chance one of the Legion would perish just to retrieve your corpse?  We _did_ want to go as far as we could, I recall.”

He sighs.  “No, I couldn’t.”

“It’ll be all right, Alistair,” she says, because it has to be.  They are Grey Wardens, and this is their lot in death: unburned, unburied, left to rot or worse beneath miles and miles of oppressive stone.  Cut off from the rites of their people, the only guide they’ll get, if they’re lucky, is one another.

It will be enough.


End file.
